NYC Foreclosure Rescue Ringleader, Mortgage Broker Cop Plea In Equity Stripping Scam Involving $200M+ In Fraudulently Obtained Loans

In New York City, The Associated Press reports:

• One company billed itself as a white knight that could rescue desperate homeowners from foreclosure. The other passed itself off as an honest brokerage that helped wealthy New Yorkers get mortgages to buy $1 million apartments. In reality, both firms dealt primarily in fraud, according to prosecutors.

• Two Brooklyn mortgage specialists pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges this week in a pair of loosely related cases that cost banks millions of dollars and led to some people losing their homes.

• Maurice McDowall, the owner of a "foreclosure rescue" company called Lost and Found Recovery, copped to an indictment accusing his firm of persuading scores of struggling families to enroll in a program to "save" their homes by temporarily signing them away to someone else. Mortgage broker Aleksander Lipkin admitted criminal wrongdoing in both that case and a separate fraud in which his firm, Lending Universe, used bogus paperwork to arrange more than $200 million in loans they knew would probably never be repaid.

For more, see 2 plead guilty in NY mortgage frauds targeting homeowners.

See also:

• Indictment - U.S. vs. McDowall, et al.,
• New York Daily News: Two found guilty in mortgage scam and face 30 years in prison,
• U.S. Attorney Press Release: Leader of Foreclosure Rescue Scheme and Mortgage Broker Plead Guilty to Multimillion Mortgage Fraud.

Go here for other posts on foreclosure rescue operator Maurice McDowall.

Go here for other criminal prosecutions of foreclosure rescue operators.

For more on equity stripping scams, generally, see DREAMS FORECLOSED: The Rampant Theft of Americans' Homes Through Equity-stripping Foreclosure 'Rescue' Scams (4.61 MB approx.).